Saturday, February 11, 2017

As you may have seen overnight, it turns out that the BMG/Herald poll also asked a question about BBC bias against independence. Because the poll was not commissioned by a pro-independence client, it's going to be hard for the corporation to dismiss the results out of hand. 36% of respondents agreed with the statement that "the BBC tends to report news that is biased against the cause of Scottish independence", and only 23% disagreed, with the remainder (41%) apparently saying they neither agreed nor disagreed. The datasets haven't been released yet (and as it's the weekend we'll probably have to wait at least a couple of days), but the Herald article reveals that belief in BBC bias is heavily concentrated among people who voted Yes, and to a lesser extent among the young - presumably because there's a fair amount of overlap between those two groups.

If you'd told me a poll on this subject was coming, I think I would have been able to predict that a third or more of people think the BBC is biased. The real shock, and what should genuinely alarm the corporation's bosses, is the fact that less than a quarter of respondents actively dismissed the notion of bias. Judging by the affected incredulity the BBC adopted when brushing off the accusations of one-sidedness in 2014, this is an institution that has remained fairly relaxed about the loyalty of its 'natural constituency' - ie. the people who are supposed to reflexively dismiss any notion that the BBC isn't scrupulously fair and impartial as the ravings of brainwashed lunatics. You can see from the reaction of opposition parties in the Herald piece ("celebrate the BBC!" demands Willie Rennie) that they also still believe that the impulse to defend the BBC to the death is alive and well among Scotland's silent majority - but this poll suggests they're wrong. Even without seeing the datasets, basic arithmetic will tell you that more than half of No voters presumably declined to actively reject the suggestion of bias.

And in all honesty, that's hardly surprising, given that No voters saw the same BBC coverage as the rest of us during the crucial penultimate week of the 2014 campaign. BBC news at network level seemed to have been sleepwalking through the campaign until the YouGov poll putting Yes ahead was published on the penultimate Saturday night. Lorry-loads of London journalists then suddenly descended upon Glasgow and Edinburgh, and having had no experience of covering the issue, they imagined they were somehow being impartial by putting out wall-to-wall coverage of "warnings of economic Armageddon if Scotland becomes independent" stories, just so long as they always gave the Yes campaign a defensive right of reply to the "warnings". After a week of this unmitigated hysteria, they finally seemed to take a step back and put their house in order to a limited extent, but by that time the damage was largely done - both to the Yes campaign, and ironically, to the BBC's own reputation in Scotland.

They say that the first step towards solving a problem is to recognise that it exists. Donalda MacKinnon has gone further down that road than anyone before her, but she still seemed to be saying that the problem was that people believed the BBC was biased, rather than that bias existed. It can only be hoped that there's considerably more self-awareness in private than there is in the BBC's public pronouncements.

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Well, if you strip out the DK's, would that not mean that 61% of Scots think the BBC is biased, given that would be the way it would be presented by the unionist media if it was a poll on Independence.

Fanatics will always claim bias. The BBC bent over backwards to accommodate the Nat sis. The aim of the Nat sis is to continually moan about anything with our without substance until their aim is acheived.It was not the fault of the BBC that the Nat sis did not come up with a currency solution or offer a solid economic plan. It was the Nat sis who said entry into the EU would be a cakewalk. It was the Nat sis who said there would not be a hard border with England. It was the Nat sis who said dinnae worry vote for us and everything will be all right! Two million did not believe in them.

Just fancy! According to some people, the 36% of Scots who think the BBC is biased are fanatics, and the 23% who disagree are not. As One_Scot says, that's 61% who say the BBC is biased once you strip out the Undecideds! Compared to Unionist and BritNat trolls, that's a very, very large group. Those Unionist and BritNat trolls should just get over it, don't you think?

It's certainly interesting that the Herald - never usually bashful at finding sensation from figures - could easily have decided to present a headline based on the 36% "biased", 23% "not biased", and ignoring the 41% who did not express an opinion either way. That would easily have supported a headline of "61% think the BBC is biased" (i.e. 61% = (36 out of 36+23 expressing an opinion).

Somehow I think that if the figures had been the other way around (23% for biased, 36% for unbiased) we'd have had a headline something like "Nearly 2/3 of Scots think BBC is fair and unbiased".

I was phone polled by IPSOS MORI last Sunday. Questions centred round the BEEB and where "our" news should come from. Scottish 6 maybe? Or an internal poll for the BEEB?Its long past time we were allowed FOI questions of this organisation. Their "journalism" is largely based on publicly paid for queries, and as its our money that funds the BEEB, we should know what drives their decision making process.

I took the week off work leading up to vote. One mid morning BBC cut a live feed from Glasgow that had a blond girl with a yes placard in the background, feed went dead then back to London studios, seconds later went back to live feed in glasgow, blond girl had physically been removed from screen leaving a obviously staged group on better together campaigners, I'm still angry and I'm English

Fundamentalists on both sides will bump their gums about being bias. There is a complaints procedure in place.The main thing is that Kim Yung Eck and his devout followers never get their hands on the state media.

The BBC and liberal elites were shocked when the result was announced and in fact the BBC played the same Jock Nat si routine when the fash lost the Jock referendum, the punters are stupid and we know better. Cheerio Nat sis and all UK MEP'S get a real job ya skivers. Time to cut by half the Jock MSP'S and then go fur ra Lords big style.

I went to Edinburgh last night for a knees up, I met an American sailor at C C BLOOMS, after a few bevvies we went for a walk around the gay triangle. We looked a peach as a couple (I forgot to mention he is 6'4" and as black as night and his skin just glistened in the moonlight). I'm getting off track, people all along the street were smiling and waving to us as we sauntered along him in his sailor's uniform and me in my favourite tartan mini skirt with the sevco tartan.The good news is he is a trump supporter.I'm taking the next couple of days off cos he nearly split me in half. This is what you are missing fash nat sis come and join the union you know it makes sense.

The BBC is heavily biased. On Thursday an old education report was discussed at FM questions. BBC Scotland decided to lead it's report with Ruth Davidson's heavily loaded critical question blaming the SNP goverment.. Then nothing. That was it's ooverage. Well it made me laugh.